Why the film is worth your time
Both the music and the story are excellent, and the way they are intertwined notably raises the impact and resonance of the film’s exploration of relationships and reconciliation. The story is thinly told, yet it feels that nothing important is left out. Rather, the story is compressed so that each scene shows important character traits, relational development, or story flow. Compression of the story gives large space to the music and, being such wonderful singer-songwriter material, the music can easily fill a large space. This is a “true musical” in that every song is part of the action in the story; the lead characters are musicians, so naturally they make music. Running time: 85 min.
In Dublin, Ireland, a Guy and a Girl meet. He’s a street musician at night playing an intensely emotional song. She listens. She’s intrigued and goes up to ask him about it — and she asks more directly and intently than he really wanted. So begins their relationship, which is full of music, intensity, creativity, and dealing with issues. Yet the biggest gifts they give to each other are not typical guy-girl gifts.
Throughout, the characters use street language (however, to American ears, the accents largely diminish the impact).
- Director: John Carney
- Screenplay: John Carney
- Leads: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová
- Cinematography: Tim Fleming
- Music: Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová
- Info on IMDb
- Reviews on Rottentomatoes (97%)
- Reviews on Metacritic (88 of 100)
- Reviews on lookingcloser.org: Jeffrey Overstreet and Brett McCracken
- Review on The Ottery
- Buy Once DVD on Amazon.com
- Go to the Netflix page
- Go to the Blockbuster page
Tags: Drama
September 20, 2009, 01:32 UTC
(updated July 25, 2014, 21:01 UTC)
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